This study takes a theoretical stance that relies on the notion that cognitive
development is predominantly a process of learning. The study rests
particularly on the Vygotskian theory that children learn within a social
environment by practising cognitive skills, under expert tutelage, that they
will later perform independently. If children are to develop skills in
reasoning the classroom needs to be a place where reasoning skills are
modelled, practised and reinforced. Certain features of interactive discourse
may have the effect of emphasising the content of a discussion at the
expense of the reasoning process and therefore of the practice of reasoning.
This study investigated the interactive discourse of a classroom discussion
that had reasoning as the sole objective of the discussion and identified the
discourse features that characterised the discussion. One experimental
kindergarten group and two experimental grade 1/2 groups were introduced
to a reasoning-based approach using the Elfie package. A discussion, based
on a children's story, was then held with these groups and with two
experimental kindergartens that had received no previous exposure to the
reasoning-based approach. Examination was also made of the discourse
features of a control kindergarten discussion and a grade 1/2 discussion.
Important differences were identified between the discourse features of the
control and experimental classrooms.
Analyses of the experimental discussions found a lower proportion of
teacher utterances that were psuedo questions, and that included evaluation
of pupil comments; a higher proportion of teacher invitations to explore the
logical implications of an idea; a higher proportion of pupil utterances that
were in response to other pupil comments and a higher proportion of pupil
utterances that included reasons.
Analyses of control discussions found that the prevailing pattern of
discourse involved teacher initiation (often a pseudo question) - pupil
response - teacher evaluation and re-elicitation. Discussion is included about
the role such a pattern plays in emphasising content at the expense of the
process of reasoning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219503 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Triglone, Robyn J., n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Robyn J. Triglone |
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